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Neadenil Edam wrote:Yep I agree tell that to the rules listed in that blog. I would be Evil for killing and Chaotic for starting combat.Ludy wrote:Quandary wrote:Druids can be Evil, FYI. (Alignment: ANY Neutral)Ah yes but not CE as I will attack first if I or others are threatened." ...if I or others are threatened"
You are following a rule/guiding principle there. Sounds more like neutral (if self interested) or lawful evil to me :D
If you were CE you would be like one of those 70's punks or euro-trash football hoodlums, randomly starting fights and killing just because you happen to be in the mood.
A NE druid would definitely " attack first if I or others are threatened" .
I don't know that the design ideas in the blog are saying that. While killing may be evil in itself that won't make your character evil, unless you have been doing a lot of evil actions over a period of time without doing any good actions to make up for them.

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At the end of the day the Paladin is probably the most controversial of the core classes for all of the reasons in this thread. Mostly because it is the class most influenced by "the curse of Gary Gygax" ie; alignment. Many of us have actually played Pathfinder or DnD. Many of us have also Dungeon Mastered. Every DM has a different interpretation of what being a Pally is and NOBODY here can say they always agreed with the interpretations they played under. Dancey's interpretation is one of many acceptable ones and GW's are effectively the DM's of PFO.
So just like in the PnP version, suck it up cuz you don't always get your way in these games.
At least any result that come from the char development will make much more sense than the way we see paladins being played in other games, such as Lineage2, where we can see PK-paladins, robber paladins and all sorts of missbehaving paladins. Even if I don't agree 100% with the final product, I'm trully confident a paladin-like char in this game will make much more sense than the average we see in other MMOs.

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One thing I'm not really getting, and maybe you guys can explain it to me, is why you all think that taking the occasional hit (and a small one if your target is truely evil) is going to make you all chaotic evil? Why are you assuming that roaming around and murderhoboing anyone who looks at you funny is all you will be doing? If it is, then yes, you will be CE. If you are, however, taking other actions that push you toward lawful or good (which will likely have bigger impact per action if the people you're attacking are actually evil), you're still going to maintain lawful good.
Is it a perfect system, no. But short of having a GM follow you around spamming a macro that just asks you "Why?" over and over again and assigning alignment shifts manually, you're not going to get a whole lot better.

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At least any result that come from the char development will make much more sense than the way we see paladins being played in other games, such as Lineage2, where we can see PK-paladins, robber paladins and all sorts of missbehaving paladins. Even if I don't agree 100% with the final product, I'm trully confident a paladin-like char in this game will make much more sense than the average we see in other MMOs.
It would be worth it for that alone. Pallys that act like friggin Pallys?? Wow, I think I have forgotten to even want that.
You wanna be a holy vigilante, you aren't a Pally, you are a fighter/cleric type. Deal with it. Pathfinder also has a class that could be worked in later called the Inquisitor and that is probably the class that fits best for what some people think is a Paladin.
Also, as a P.S., I have known DM's that would put Ryan's definition of LG Pally to shame. Really hard core and strict, mostly because DM's hate having to deal with pallys. Most PnP vets will vouch the same.

Valandur |

GW Blog wrote:All three axes are lowered by unprovoked PvP, but nuanced differences can result in a player having high values in some axes but not others. Specifically:
You slip toward chaotic whenever you gain the Attacker or Criminal flags, except when pursuing a bounty (see below). This is generally a flat amount of loss.
You slip toward evil whenever you kill someone while you have the Attacker flag or gain the Heinous flag. For killing, you move less if the target was also evil (in other words, it's more evil to kill a good character).
If you have the Attacker flag, when you kill a target you lose reputation proportional to the reputation of the target (it's less disreputable to murder targets that have low reputation). Additionally, the target might further choose to rebuke you (even if it didn't result in a kill), expending some of his or her reputation to lower yours.A settlement can remain competitive with a low rating in law, good, or reputation (or average ratings in all three), but the penalties add up such that a settlement that caters to low-reputation chaotic evil characters will be at a fairly significant disadvantage compared to other settlements, and such characters may have a hard time finding a place to train, trade, and craft.
GW clearly envisions reputation not being tied to Evilness.
If a higher percentage of your Chaotic/Evil inclined kills are against people with low reputation, then your reputation isn't so low.
Also there is other mechanics involving reputation around rebukes/salutes and death's curses,
which are independent of alignment, and thus a LE character could have good reputation while being Evil.
I don't really know the details completely (who does?), but conceptually they are not tied together,
so it's plausible to have a decent reputation while being Evil,
in other words, 'reputation' may not have all the connotations you may think it does.also see this:
Quote:There are other mechanics in Pathfinder Online that describe the...
The reputation system will be effected by many different actions. Among these are any sort of trading allows both the buyer and seller to rate the other. So your character may well be LE, but if they are part of the administration of a LE settlement, and are generous in their dealings with other LE members of the settlement, then they may well get positive (high) reputation while maintaining their LE alignment.
This is absolute BS. Essentially, if you're trying to run an Evil settlement (where naturally, low reputation characters are going to hang out) you will never be able to get or utilize the most useful structures available. Like someone being evil automatically makes you bad at city planning.
I must say that I don't understand how GW intends this to work. I've been hoping that they would give us some insight into what sort of buildings a LG settlement might have that a LE settlement might not have, but no answer has been given.
I would think that a LE settlement would have access to the same type of buildings that a LG settlement might build, but on an opposite axis. But I've nothing to base this thought on.
A word on CE.... While the definition of CE certainly implies that their settlements would be the worst of all the alignments, in practice this may not prove to be so. While many may wear the CE alignment, their actions may fluctuate wildly making their settlement not solely a product of CE members. While this would shift the settlement away from CE, a few wild PK runs would quickly shift things back to CE. So it's quite possible that a CE settlement might be quite organized and well run yet still remain mostly CE. Hopefully this makes sense.

Valandur |

One thing I'm not really getting, and maybe you guys can explain it to me, is why you all think that taking the occasional hit (and a small one if your target is truely evil) is going to make you all chaotic evil? Why are you assuming that roaming around and murderhoboing anyone who looks at you funny is all you will be doing? If it is, then yes, you will be CE. If you are, however, taking other actions that push you toward lawful or good (which will likely have bigger impact per action if the people you're attacking are actually evil), you're still going to maintain lawful good.
Is it a perfect system, no. But short of having a GM follow you around spamming a macro that just asks you "Why?" over and over again and assigning alignment shifts manually, you're not going to get a whole lot better.
You know, I had a post saying this same thing half way finished when I erased it. Why? Well I guess I thought that many people aren't going to be satisfied until they take no hit from attacking and killing someone of evil alignment even if the evil character has done no evil (has no flags).
Paladins have always had a hard road, this really doesn't make their road any harder. You would think they would be doing lawful and good things normally anyway, which would outweigh any evil hits they get. S I've no answer to your question Dario, but I agree with your posting it! :)

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I would think that a LE settlement would have access to the same type of buildings that a LG settlement might build, but on an opposite axis. But I've nothing to base this thought on.
See Dancy's post here.
I read that to mean that LE settlements have equal or equivalent potential as LG settlements. The details may vary because of, for example the personality of the deities served, but functionally equivalent.
The potentials appear to reduce as alignment steps away for those two extremes of the G-E spectrum and seems to be more a function of the influence of Lawfulness.
From this I am pretty confident we can infer that Lawful Neutral settlements will also be powerhouses.

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Why are you assuming that roaming around and murderhoboing anyone who looks at you funny is all you will be doing? If it is, then yes, you will be CE. If you are, however, taking other actions that push you toward lawful or good (which will likely have bigger impact per action if the people you're attacking are actually evil), you're still going to maintain lawful good.
This is a very valid point, and was actually bringing this up in my guild TS last night.
I was guilty of this myself yesterday, but I think a lot of us have been up in arms about this is because all we’ve heard is how our alignment worsens (going to evil) and haven’t heard anything on how we can do to improve our alignment.
I would be interested to hear from GW on what actions can push your alignment to good as I think it will be more difficult for the game to distinguish ‘good’ acts compared to ‘evil’ acts.

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Well with all the talk about Paladins having alignment shifts if they kill. Well then I think there is one class that needs to be added to the core classes that would be implemented for release. It is the Antipaladin (Advance Players Guide pg 118-123), needed for the paladins that strayed away from their code.
Looking at the Antipaladin, I do notice that it has 20th levels of advancement. So to support the Antipaladins, the evil side will need structures in their evil settlements to be able to advance all the way to 20th level.
This is just one example where evil has equal advancement as of good.
PS: Antipaladins are CE.

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We should be able to infer a few things and if those are true other truths will also be logical.
If we contribute to the development of our settlement we should probably gain in lawful alignment. I venture this because of the characteristics of lawful settlements to have a higher potential effectiveness than chaotic settlements.
Second, I think that voluntary contribution to Good aligned causes, such as orphanages, schools, libraries, and hospitals would bolster good alignment just as enslavement of the children as laborers and raising undead as guards would bolster evil alignment.

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We should be able to infer a few things and if those are true other truths will also be logical.
If we contribute to the development of our settlement we should probably gain in lawful alignment. I venture this because of the characteristics of lawful settlements to have a higher potential effectiveness than chaotic settlements.
Second, I think that voluntary contribution to Good aligned causes, such as orphanages, schools, libraries, and hospitals would bolster good alignment just as enslavement of the children as laborers and raising undead as guards would bolster evil alignment.
But the thing is, how does the game measure contributions to a settlement? Is it by (game) money? Will you need to choose “I volunteer with this orphanage” and log off your character for x game minutes/hours? (I think that would be a bad way to do it, btw).
What I think would be more likely is doing some sort of quest for an organization. So you are still playing, (hopefully) having fun and raising your good alignment in the process.
But then this is all conjecture right now, as GW hasn’t told us anything on how our alignment can change for the good. All that’s been confirmed so far is “if you kill someone one, you will take an evil alignment hit”.
So I would truly be interested to hear about the flipside from GW. Now, if there is no way to improve your alignment, then people rightfully so should be upset.

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Being wrote:We should be able to infer a few things and if those are true other truths will also be logical.
If we contribute to the development of our settlement we should probably gain in lawful alignment. I venture this because of the characteristics of lawful settlements to have a higher potential effectiveness than chaotic settlements.
Second, I think that voluntary contribution to Good aligned causes, such as orphanages, schools, libraries, and hospitals would bolster good alignment just as enslavement of the children as laborers and raising undead as guards would bolster evil alignment.
But the thing is, how does the game measure contributions to a settlement? Is it by (game) money? Will you need to choose “I volunteer with this orphanage” and log off your character for x game minutes/hours? (I think that would be a bad way to do it, btw).
What I think would be more likely is doing some sort of quest for an organization. So you are still playing, (hopefully) having fun and raising your good alignment in the process.
But then this is all conjecture right now, as GW hasn’t told us anything on how our alignment can change for the good. All that’s been confirmed so far is “if you kill someone one, you will take an evil alignment hit”.
So I would truly be interested to hear about the flipside from GW. Now, if there is no way to improve your alignment, then people rightfully so should be upset.
Clearly much is unknown as yet. I should think monetary contribution to an orphanage would provide minimal alignment yield compared to running a quest in the service of said orphanage, yes.
I cannot imagine they would build the system with no way to improve your alignment. If they did, I expect to be amazed by a profound solution they dreamt up.
Most simply: I surmise if you aid good your good alignment will increase by an amount that will vary depending on how good you already are. If you ar already very good it will help you less than if you are not yet good. Similarly with Law: if you are already perfectly lawful changes will be minute, but if you are chaotic then a lawful act might boost you quite a bit toward lawful.
So in the alignment model I am now entertaining the Lawful Good-Evil spectrum is what all characters are measured by, and what many will aspire to. Most Players will play chaotic good. Few are expected to play chaotic evil, so chaotic evil is what we should expect will be the alignment of most PvE monsters.
Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, and Lawful Neutral then offer the pinnacle of civilization. The organizations will be mighty.
The Chaotic on the other hand will emphasize the power of individualism, whether anarchy (evil) or liberation (good).

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Being wrote:We should be able to infer a few things and if those are true other truths will also be logical.
If we contribute to the development of our settlement we should probably gain in lawful alignment. I venture this because of the characteristics of lawful settlements to have a higher potential effectiveness than chaotic settlements.
Second, I think that voluntary contribution to Good aligned causes, such as orphanages, schools, libraries, and hospitals would bolster good alignment just as enslavement of the children as laborers and raising undead as guards would bolster evil alignment.
But the thing is, how does the game measure contributions to a settlement? Is it by (game) money? Will you need to choose “I volunteer with this orphanage” and log off your character for x game minutes/hours? (I think that would be a bad way to do it, btw).
What I think would be more likely is doing some sort of quest for an organization. So you are still playing, (hopefully) having fun and raising your good alignment in the process.
But then this is all conjecture right now, as GW hasn’t told us anything on how our alignment can change for the good. All that’s been confirmed so far is “if you kill someone one, you will take an evil alignment hit”.
So I would truly be interested to hear about the flipside from GW. Now, if there is no way to improve your alignment, then people rightfully so should be upset.
I'm thinking a variety different types of Contracts, Donations and Quests.

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@Hobbun
Maybe contribution to your settlement will be handled as in EVE (or more).
- some gusy starts to build building blocks
- some guys will craft consumables
- some guys will patrol the area and keep it clear from undesirables (from termites to crusaders)
- some guys will convince the wandering NPC/PC folk with desirable professions to go from the Crusader's road to your settlement
- some guys will repair structures and pay upkeep costs
- some guys will train with your guards or search for spies
There are many ways to contribute. Not all of them will be fun (for me. at least), but some things must be done 'cause they are critical for any settlement.

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@Hobbun
Maybe contribution to your settlement will be handled as in EVE (or more).
- some gusy starts to build building blocks
- some guys will craft consumables
- some guys will patrol the area and keep it clear from undesirables (from termites to crusades)
- some guys will sway the wandering NPC folk with desiranle professions to go from the Crusader's road to your settlement
- some guys will repair structures and pay upkeep costs
- some guys will train with your guards or search for spies
There are many ways to contribute. Not all of them will be fun (for me. at least), but some things must be done 'cause they are critical for any settlement.
Aye, that too.

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Now that I've read the blog post and understood it :), I hope a great horde creates a great chaotic evil empire and declares war on all other chartered companies, settlements and nations to test the game mechanics thoroughly. Am I allowed to say this?
The Horde... sounds like a nice name to a CE group LOL

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Aeioun Plainsweed wrote:Now that I've read the blog post and understood it :), I hope a great horde creates a great chaotic evil empire and declares war on all other chartered companies, settlements and nations to test the game mechanics thoroughly. Am I allowed to say this?The Horde... sounds like a nice name to a CE group LOL
Dark Empire... LE?

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Decius wrote:You don't have to know everyone you care about. But what you're saying sounds a lot like you want the ability to hunt someone indefinitely because they once got away with highway robbery. I know that isn't your actual position, though.I've never even implied I want that... ever. I want the right to hunt people until they change their behavior. If you are going out committing acts of evil every day then you should expect good aligned opposition. If you aren't, then you should naturally gravitate toward neutral.
Here is a big question of mine. Why the heck would anyone play evil if they don't want and expect to be hunted by good aligned players? I fully expect my positions to cause evil opponents to seek me out. I WANT that! That is what meaningful player interaction is all about!
The minute I stop wanting that I'll behaving the way I do.
You keep on coming back to this but you're not recognizing the probability that bandits will be able to remain CN. The stated zones and flagging mechanics would suggest this will be the case.
So are you fighting griefing, evil aligned characters, certain player activities or all of the above?
Of it is all, than you can not claim to be NG, and I doubt the mechanics will steer you that way. You will end up either CN like us or even CE, if you are not careful where you are killing these bandits.
We in the UnNamed Company do not intend to conduct acts of banditry in settled hexes, unless we are at war (our own or contracted). This will make our attack, criminal and thief flags moot.

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The desire for 'Charles Bronson justice' just shows why neutral alignments have a useful place in a pioneer society. The indication that it is less evil to kill evil and more evil to kill good just changes the speed at which you slip and how much recovery you need. If you have some measure of restraint, you won't have such a hard time walking that line. If every situation starts looking like an excuse to terminate with extreme prejudice, then LE may be the right alignment for how you want to play.

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I completely disagree with the rules as I understand them at this time. I most definitely will be evil it seems. I will not wait to be attacked until they have superior numbers. I'll initiate combat and I might do it without a bounty. I feel I have every right to prey on bandits like they prey on fat merchants. If a character is evil killing them is good. This is not the real world. This is a game that doesn't have as many shades of grey there is black and white. These rules just mean more will embrace the black.
You know, maybe these rules are spot on, because it seems almost everyone feels restricted by them. I had the almost opposite reaction from you, Ludy. My immediate thought was, "What? Evil settlements won't be as good? Blasphemy! Why would anyone want to be evil?"
Good characters want to kill Evil characters with impunity; Evil characters want settlements that are in every way on par with Good characters.
Maybe this lose/lose situation will actually provide some sort of balance?

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"The Chaotic on the other hand will emphasize the power of individualism, whether anarchy (evil) or liberation (good)." - Being
Anarchy is lawlessness, it is not automatically Evil. I resent that, sir :)
Hmm... point taken.
I think the 'good' expression of individualism is liberty or independence. He views the lawful as a bunch of codependent weaklings.
What would be the evil counterpart who views lawful evils as codependent sheeple?
Rebel is also orienting on the law-chaos scale rather than good or bad.
Maybe 'independent' is as well.
</lesigh> Sigh!

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"The Chaotic on the other hand will emphasize the power of individualism, whether anarchy (evil) or liberation (good)." - Being
Anarchy is lawlessness, not automatically Evil. I resent that, sir :)
Sounds nice, idealistically, but in such a system it only takes one or two rogue elements to turn the 'paradise that doesn't need laws' into a situation like Somalia.

Rah |

Rahath wrote:"The Chaotic on the other hand will emphasize the power of individualism, whether anarchy (evil) or liberation (good)." - Being
Anarchy is lawlessness, it is not automatically Evil. I resent that, sir :)
Hmm... point taken.
I think the 'good' expression of individualism is liberty or independence. He views the lawful as a bunch of codependent weaklings.
What would be the evil counterpart who views lawful evils as codependent sheeple?
Individualism would in the good sense equate to liberty and freedom, I guess.
So in the evil sense it would stand to reason that enslavement and maybe imprisonment, might be the counterparts?It is kind of iffy :)

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There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.

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There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.
I think EVE shows thats a pretty terrible way to live...

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Rah wrote:Sounds nice, idealistically, but in such a system it only takes one or two rogue elements to turn the 'paradise that doesn't need laws' into a situation like Somalia."The Chaotic on the other hand will emphasize the power of individualism, whether anarchy (evil) or liberation (good)." - Being
Anarchy is lawlessness, not automatically Evil. I resent that, sir :)
It also doesn't take much on the other end of the spectrum to turn your LG society into a police state.

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Danneth Sky wrote:There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.I think EVE shows thats a pretty terrible way to live...
I'm not that familiar with EVE. . . care to elaborate?

Rah |

There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.
The problem with this is that you would end up (probably) with a Shadowrun kind of corporate system, where you get Megacorps, who will become too big to stop and start ruling.

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Eve is not a valid model of Anarcho-Capitalism in the real world, because in Eve the players all know it's virtual, so they don't feel social pressure to avoid doing terrible things to each other.
Interesting. . . EVE must be pretty brutal from the way everyone on these boards talks about it.

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Danneth Sky wrote:There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.The problem with this is that you would end up (probably) with a Shadowrun kind of corporate system, where you get Megacorps, who will become too big to stop and start ruling.
It's hard to say exactly what would happen, since we've never seen a system like that (that I know of) fully in place. Many of the "too big to fail" corporations we've seen in our lifetimes have had tremendous help from the State in achieving that status. Even in the industrial age, we've never seen a truly "free" market.

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The problem with this is that you would end up (probably) with a Shadowrun kind of corporate system, where you get Megacorps, who will become too big to stop and start ruling.
Every system has the potential for one group of people to become too powerful. That's human nature.
So, instead, you focus on devising a system that respects individual freedom and dignity, and hope that the human beings alive in any generation have the courage to Stand Tall against whatever form of tyranny they face - whether it's Corporatism, Cronyism, or simple Totalitarianism.

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Interesting. . . EVE must be pretty brutal from the way everyone on these boards talks about it.
Indeed it can be. EVE online is dystopian sci-fi sandbox game with lots of ways to behave... unethically. But EVE also vast and varied in the terms of playstyles. And many people like it. And many - dislike EVE.

Rah |

Rah wrote:It's hard to say exactly what would happen, since we've never seen a system like that (that I know of) fully in place. Many of the "too big to fail" corporations we've seen in our lifetimes have had tremendous help from the State in achieving that status. Even in the industrial age, we've never seen a truly "free" market.Danneth Sky wrote:There are many flavors of anarchy - If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick Anarcho-capitalism.The problem with this is that you would end up (probably) with a Shadowrun kind of corporate system, where you get Megacorps, who will become too big to stop and start ruling.
An experiment on a somewhat smaller scale (maybe a country) would definitely be interesting.

Rah |

Rah wrote:The problem with this is that you would end up (probably) with a Shadowrun kind of corporate system, where you get Megacorps, who will become too big to stop and start ruling.Every system has the potential for one group of people to become too powerful. That's human nature.
So, instead, you focus on devising a system that respects individual freedom and dignity, and hope that the human beings alive in any generation have the courage to Stand Tall against whatever form of tyranny they face - whether it's Corporatism, Cronyism, or simple Totalitarianism.
I agree with you for the first part. I disagree with you about the hoping that it will work out. It is probably possible to teach the new generations that. Teach them the higher ideals at an early age, ideals like Truth and Justice. And maybe add Honor for good measure.
Anyway, did not mean to hijack the thread, this is the last I will comment on this off topic :)

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I believe something that should be taken away from all of this is the fact that despite the game title, "Pathfinder Online", this is more akin to "Golarion Online" with a Pathfinder theme and Kingmaker accents.
While most of us have played our favorite roleplaying game for about 15-20 in some cases 30 years, Golarion is realitivly new by compairison. Only a third... and that is being generous, of the amount of time that a lot of us have been playing PnP, has Golarion been around.
I agree with the assessment that most people would gravitate towards CG. I agree that most people's perception of what a Paladin is may be skewed by their experience playing a paladin. Some of the best in-character drama came from when you had an evil character in the same party as a paladin. The paladin couldn't just smite the unsavory character outright so the viewpoints got played out the rest of the group had to weigh in. It became more of a battle of ideologies. IMO of course.
That being said, there is less censorship when it comes to alignment hits if a mechanic cannot be overruled by a GM. Part of the allure of playing a paladin is the fact that it is a hard road and not everyone could walk it. If being a paladin was simply running around and killing evil, then anyone could do it.
Since there is no class system, you have to "put in work" to be a Paladin or a Monk... as it should be. Banditry will be much easier... again, as it should be.
The funny thing is, a lot of people thought that evil was getting neglected because lawful good had a lot of boons. Now that a lot of people who thought they were going to be playing lawful good see that the road isn't as shiney and polished as they envisioned, we'll probably have a lot more evil or at least chaos on our hands.
All in all, I think some enhancements can be made to the bounty system from a mechanical standpoint, but you'll have to wait to "hear" those ;)
I must say, from what I have seen thus far, I like where they are going with the project.
-Areks

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Are players in EVE restricted mechanicly like they apparently will be in PFO to 'be nice'?
After all the talk about EVE I decided to check it out for the 14 day trial. I'm enjoying it so far. I really like the certificate system since it helps you set up goals. I need goals since I have no idea what I'd be doing otherwise.
As far as PvP restriction each sector is rated. A higher rating means that a faster and more brutal response by the "police" for any pvp action. PvP can still happen in even the highest, most secure sector, just a lot more unlikely then a sector with no security.
Who you attack affects your reputation both negatively and positively depending on the faction, and there seems to be hundreds of factions. I haven't tried this yet, but if you attack another player you can gain a pirate flag. Not sure exactly on how this negatively affects you. I'm sure others will be able to elaborate more.

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Decius wrote:You don't have to know everyone you care about. But what you're saying sounds a lot like you want the ability to hunt someone indefinitely because they once got away with highway robbery. I know that isn't your actual position, though.I've never even implied I want that... ever. I want the right to hunt people until they change their behavior. If you are going out committing acts of evil every day then you should expect good aligned opposition. If you aren't, then you should naturally gravitate toward neutral.
Here is a big question of mine. Why the heck would anyone play evil if they don't want and expect to be hunted by good aligned players? I fully expect my positions to cause evil opponents to seek me out. I WANT that! That is what meaningful player interaction is all about!
The minute I stop wanting that I'll behaving the way I do.
When have they changed their behavior? One way of determining that would be to say they have changed their behavior when the flag clears; not knowing details of how long that takes, I can't say one way or the other.

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An experiment on a somewhat smaller scale (maybe a country) would definitely be interesting.
I disagree with you about the hoping that it will work out. It is probably possible to teach the new generations that. Teach them the higher ideals at an early age, ideals like Truth and Justice. And maybe add Honor for good measure.
Obviously, we each do what we can to pass on our own values and ideals to the next generation. My point was that there's nothing we can do to guarantee they stick; that's why we have to trust... and hope.
But yea, I think we're definitely threadjacking and I'll let it go :)

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When have they changed their behavior? One way of determining that would be to say they have changed their behavior when the flag clears; not knowing details of how long that takes, I can't say one way or the other.
They've changed their behavior when they regain a neutral alignment. Alignment is the reflection of your behaviors added up over time with the most recent ones generally counting the most.
Remember there is three alignments at play here:
Good-Evil
Law-Chaos
Reputation
So if a player does nothing but evil actions they will be lawful-evil with a high reputation. Killing them would be chaotic-good but lower my reputation. That is how purely RP evil characters avoid getting PKed by good aligned vigilantes all the time.
Because if I kill people with a high reputation I end up with a low one, designating me as a RPKer regardless of their alignment. So the system works perfectly if there is a point that I no longer lose alignment for killing someone on each scale.
Good can fight evil.
Law can fight chaos.
High reputation (Treats other players well) can fight low reputation (RPKs and backstabs those they make agreements with.)

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Hey y'all:
Thanks for giving us all your comments and thoughts in this thread. I figured that the blog this week would be a doozy. Alignment and its ramifications are a touchy topic AND something that hasn't really ever been done in an MMO, so it is breaking new ground. Thankfully we have almost a year and a half to get it right. :)
There are some really great insights in this thread. Some good fodder for the grist wheel. This is what crowdforging is all about. We talk about some ideas that we have for the game and y'all give us a ton of feedback on those ideas.
One thing I would have you remember is that NONE of these systems are set in stone. Matter of fact, they aren't even in quicksand yet. They are some current thoughts we have had on the topic. There is plenty of time and room for change. Crowdforging is us throwing out ideas and you guys giving us your thoughts, and later, in-game experiences. Then we go away and talk about it and sometimes make some changes based on our discussions with you.
Personally, I think there is enough good thoughts in this thread to warrant another discussion on our end. Thanks again for all of your passion and dedication to Pathfinder Online!
-Lisa